Interviews

My 15 minutes

Interview by Jonathan Jones. Originally appeared in The Guardian, February 12, 2002. Part of series around an Andy Warhol retrospective in The Tate Modern.

I speak about his
generosity - people say he wasn't generous, he was cheap, but whenever I
had a problem, for example when I needed an album cover, he'd do it. I
went to see him to ask for a cover. He said, 'I'll get Yoko Ono to pose
naked with you and we'll call it John and Yoko.'

He was very easy to get close to. Everybody had a real suspicion of
Andy, but it was intellectual envy - it wasn't true at all. We used
intellectual envy as a self-protective mechanism more than anything else.

When we went up to the Factory it was a real eye-opener for me. It
wasn't called the Factory for nothing. It was where the assembly-line for
the silkscreens happened. While one person was making a silkscreen,
somebody else would be filming a screen test. Every day something new. I
think he was dipping into anything he fancied.

The band had written the first album before we met Andy. He found us
very much in the raw and gave us the kind of protective shield we needed.
We adamantly went our own way and made things very difficult for
ourselves. We drifted off into this netherworld of art and music and film.
Everybody on the Lower East Side was trying to do the same thing: destroy
the formality of the audience. We found a location and an atmosphere that
were very conducive. Andy wasn't a musician - it was more of an
intellectual camaraderie. We would travel around with his entourage. Edie
Sedgwick would take us all out and pay the bill.

Andy became withdrawn after being hurt. [Warhol was shot by Valerie
Solanas in 1968.] When the thing with Valerie happened he was very hurt.